Freelancers and micro-business owners in Edinburgh and Glasgow are being plagued by late paying clients, according to new research by cloud accounting software company FreeAgent.

The firm has revealed data showing just 49% of invoices sent in Edinburgh were paid on time last year.

FreeAgent reviewed data from a sample of its customer-base of over 50,000 and analysed hundreds of thousands of invoices that were sent in the last calendar year to build an overview of the late payment problem across the UK.

It found that, on average, only half (51%) of the invoices sent by UK micro businesses and freelancers in 2015 were paid on time, while in some areas the figure dropped to just a quarter (24%).

Ed Molyneux, CEO and co-founder of FreeAgent, said: “We know that late payment is a huge issue for the UK economy, but our research shows just how widespread it is for the freelance and micro-business sector.

“We found that micro-businesses across the whole of the UK face late payment problems.

"And this isn’t just clients taking an extra week or two to pay - it also includes the chronic late payers who sit on invoices for months, as well as those who just don’t pay at all.

“Micro-business owners need to get paid promptly to keep their cash flow healthy and most don’t have the luxury of being able to absorb a late - or non - payment in their accounts.

"We need to see a complete cultural shift when it comes to paying invoices, so that these types of smaller businesses are not put at risk.”